A study conducted at The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and working with The Frankie Foundation, v 34 urine samples from patients that potentially had thyroid cancer. They hadn’t undergone a biopsy yet so no one knew who had full-blown cancer and who had a more benign thyroid disease. The team then tasked Frankie, a German Shepherd trained to pick up the cancer’s distinct aroma, with delivering a nose diagnosis.
After he made his picks, the biopsies were performed, and the dog correctly guessed 30 out of 34 results, 88.2 percent accuracy. The conclusions were fairly evenly split with 15 patients testing positive for cancer while the other 19 were not.
More tests are needed before this method becomes widely adopted. Next time the team plans on working with Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine to train bomb-sniffing dogs in the sacred art of thyroid cancer detection.Thankfully a dog does not need convincing this is a promotion for their sniffing career.
However, based on this experiment, the school’s endocrine oncology doctors that led the process say that Frankie was about as accurate as the traditional, more invasive, and more expensive way of checking for the cancer. And besides, most people would probably prefer to have a dog smell their pee than get a needle jammed in them.
[Image courtesy of mrMark on Flickr]
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